To The Moon

The first problem is that there is no single algorithm that guides the way Twitter decides to elevate or bury content, unlike what Musk has implied in the past. Rather, according to sources within Twitter’s technical team who spoke on condition of anonymity, decisions are the result of many different algorithms that perform a complex dance atop mountains of data and a multitude of human actions. Results are also tailored to each user based on their personal information and behavior. “There is no ‘master algorithm’ for Twitter,” one company source says.

Another issue is that Twitter uses machine learning to guide many decisions. For instance, Twitter trains numerous machine learning models to help decide which posts to prioritize on users’ feeds based on a dizzying number of factors. These models cannot be inspected like regular code; they need to be tested in an environment that replicates the real world as closely as possible. The models also change rapidly in the real system, in response to a constant flow of new data, user behavior, and input from moderators. This would quickly make them an unreliable source of information.

“In this age of machine learning, it isn’t the algorithms, it’s the data,” says David Karger, a professor and computer scientist at MIT. Karger says Musk could improve Twitter by making the platform more open, so that others can build on top of it in new ways. “What makes Twitter important is not the algorithms,” he says. “It’s the people who are tweeting.”

Source from wired